Ian M. Burns worked in the aviation industry in the UK and Canada for forty-five years before retiring in 2012. For many of those years, he has been active in researching the history of British Naval Aviation during the First World War. He has written articles for Aeroplane Monthly, Cross and Cockade Journal, Over The Front and Jabberwock (The Journal of the Society of Friends of the Fleet Air Arm Museum). In 2008, Burns published a book on the history of the seaplane carrier HMS Ben-my-Chree that was selected as an Aeroplane Monthly Book of the Month